UM16 BP International Evening

Our four BP girls wanted to organise an International Evening for the unit. The Zone 2 (Global Awareness) clause says:

"With your Patrol, organise an international evening with games, crafts, food or music and dance."
Our BP Guides decided that they wanted a theme of 'International Food'. With a unit of 30, and having already done a cooperative games evening (and seen how difficult it was to get 40 lively guides to listen to them and follow instructions), they went off to plan a couple of weeks ago.

Last week they came back with their plan to have four stations, with each group visiting a station for 15 minutes, with one girl planning and running their own station. They had agreed as a group what stations (based on what they thought would be enjoyable, could fit into the time and facilities, would work with the number of girls, AND would fit well with the other stations). They did this independently away from the unit - online chat, i think - and came back with their shopping lists if need be.

We had found out during the weeks before that two local schools had school shows and parents evenings on, so we knew numbers would be down to around 22. But on the day itself, we got lots of texts from other parents saying girls were also unable to come due to parents evenings, school discos, and shows, etc....which meant we were left with only 11 girls. I will admit, I was a little disappointed at the last minute notifications (but i understand how it happens). I really don't mind that girls don't come every week, but almost all of the cancellations were down to things that were planned several weeks ago, so it would have been nice to know about these before we had done all the shopping (all edible stuff, mostly non-keepable). And i was also aware that our BP girls might be disappointed with the turnout, giving all the hard work they had put in.

On the night....well, yes, i think there was initially a bit of dismay from a two of our most 'leadery' BP girls ("where is everyone? why haven't they come?")...but that was soon forgotten once they realised that it was going to be a lot more fun and a lot less work than they had anticipated! We were able to have music on in the background, we didn't need to do any 'crowd control', and didn't once have to put our hands up to get people to listen!

We had a fantastic evening! The guides who were there had a fabulous time, and had the time (and resources available) to do extras of activities they enjoyed, and spend more time than they would otherwise have had. We were impressed the leadership and creativeness shown by our BP girls, and their ability to organise and plan. They all enjoyed running their activities, and agreed that actually, it was a lot easier with smaller numbers.

The activities they ran were

• Making and decorating (and eating!) cake-pops from America, along with an american themed quiz and colouring activity.
• Decorating German Gingerbread men
• An international blind food tasting (guess the food!)
• Mehndi from Asia, using chocolate writing icing tubes

UM 12: And we're off! A new year.

Our first week back after Christmas, and another new guide to join us, bringing our numbers up to 29 on the books.  A stark change from when my own daughter joined 3.5 years ago and there were only 9 girls in the unit!  It was lovely then, and is lovely now - just very different!

Our first week back is usually when we try and get the routine tasks out of the way and give the girls chance to catch up after their break from school. Our girls are split over 7 or 8 different schools, so it's futile to expect to not want to spend the whole time nattering on the first week back.  Tonight was no exception.

This evening, we spent time in the horseshoe remembering what our Unit Guidelines are (as set by the girls in September), we talked about what the Baden Powell Award involved for the older guides and introduced our newest guide to the unit.  There was much 'talking-over-the-top' going on...but again, that's par for the course on the first week back.  I've long since discovered when they're in this kind of mood, there's little point fighting it.  With reminders that if they carry on interrupting/talking that they won't get to play games (and following through on that), they generally get the idea after a few minutes.

We were also treated to a presentation by one of our BP girls who had done a fantastic poster and fact presentation sheet about Global Warming. The girls listened attentively to her, and the presentation was well-researched and well presented.  That's one more clause signed off!

Over the course of the evening, I asked the girls to give their suggestions on four topics - Trips Out, Games, Activites and Badges/GFIs.  Each patrol was given a stack of post-it notes, and four A3 sheets were pinned around the room (one for each topic).  They were to write their preferences/suggestions on the postit note and stick it on the appropriate posters.

Then it was on to some patrol time.  Nothing too difficult this week, and really an opportunity for the girls to chat and renew their friendships.  They all made a Guide Law Folding Thingy (thankyou to the wonderful 2nd Kingsbridge Guides) each patrol was asked to write down 4 or 5 important qualities of a good patrol leader or patrol second.  Mostly they chatted though.

After that, a quick tidyup, then time for a silly game. They got into pairs and we did the Body Parts game.  I shout out a number, and a body part, e.g. "3 feet" or "4 hands" or "two tummies" - and as a pair, they need to ensure that they ONLY have those body parts touching the floor.  So, two girls standing up would be "4 feet", or two girls lying with their feet in the air would be "2 backs".   There were some inventive approaches from some, and it was a good giggle game that required little or no preparation or organisation into teams etc. Everyone could join in, and it can last as long as you want.

At this point, our visitors arrived!  We had invited along our District Commissioner (who was also leader of this unit until a year ago), our Division Commissioner (who runs our feeder brownie unit), and our Division President (who runs a feeder Rainbow unit), so most of the girls knew them all.

The reason? We had a Baden Powell Award Presentation to do!  One of our older guides worked independently to complete her BP, and managed to get on her Adventure Weekend at the end of last year.    Our District commissioner made a fantastic cake (as well as some delicious chocolate maltezer tray bake), and our BP girl gave a short talk to the unit about what she had done as part of her BP award, and what the BP Adventure Weekend was like. She had had a wonderful time - she said the 'best weekend ever' and had made lots of new friends.   As leaders, we were thrilled with this achievement, she had worked independently and been self-directed throughout. And as a result of the Adventure Weekend she now wants to look for a Ranger Unit to join -  fantastic news!

UM7 - BP Games Evening

This week, our little group of four BP girls organised an evening of Cooperative Games, as part of one of their BP challenge clauses.

I was impressed with how they got on - despite all being at different schools and not living close to each other, they managed to communicate and even arranged a meet-up over the holidays to organise themselves.  They each came to the table with several suggestions, discussed how to run each of those games, then made their final selection, and nominated a 'leader' and 'assistant' for each game.

The games they chose were great fun, and they were well prepared and we were all impressed with how they managed the evening.   They've all gone away to write up about their experience to put in their BP files, but this was the feedback we got, and some of our observations.

1. They were surprised (and a little frustrated) by how difficult it was to get the rest of the unit to listen to them for instructions, and to follow the instructions.
2. As observers, we were able to see how their 'leadership team' worked - one very definite 'manager', one 'communicator' and a couple of 'workers' . They worked really well together, and we certainly have some potential Young Leaders amongst them.
3. They realised that with nearly 30 girls, the large-group games need to be very simple, otherwise explaining the rules becomes difficult, especially with a very mixed ability group.

I'll update soon with the games that they chose...

UM4 GFI Activities and BP

Unit Meeting 4

This evening the Guides spent time on their Go For It!  Last week, each patrol chose their GFI, did a 'getting started' activity and then planned 4 'sessions' worth of activities to complete over the next few weeks.  Tonight we allocated time for them to do 2 of their 4 planned session (each session being 30-ish minutes each).

• Pandas - GFI Peace (unit printed copy only)
• Friendship Bracelets
• Greetings
• Pelicans - GFI Grrreeen (unit printed copy only)
• Recycled Bubblewrap purses
• Recycled Magazine holders
• Puffins - GFI Blast from the Past (PDF Download here)
• Candle Smores
• Design a space menu
• Penguins - GFI With A Splash (unit printed copy only)
• Waterways, lakes and rivers scrapbook
• News Item on a water rescue

Bringing their own Resources and learning lessons about responsibilty

Each patrol had given me a list of what they were going to bring for their activities, and a list of what they needed me to bring, or the unit to provide.   In theory, I should only provide what they have asked me to provide. In practice, it's a bit different.

I always have  a dilemma here: I think we should encourage the girls to remember their resources, take responsibility, and deal with the consequence of forgetting them.  BUT  if one girl forgets to bring a key resource or doesn't turn up, this prevents her whole patrol from doing the activity, this is (a) unfair on the rest of of the patrol and (b) means I have to find something for them to do for half an hour, or magic up a replacement task - neither of which I want to happen.  So, for key resources, I do bring some extras (kept hidden in a bag!).

For example, Marshmallow Smores, I had a spare bag of mini marshmallows and chocolate buttons, so if these were forgotten or the girl was absent, the rest of the patrol would still have something to work with (albeit on a smaller scale). As it happens, they all remembered.

Likewise for other patrols, I brought along some bubblewrap (girls forgot), some magazines (some girls remembered, others didn't).  Half of the girls in Pelicans forgot to bring a cereal box for their Magazine Holder craft - so they had to negotiate with the girls in their patrol who did bring boxes, to share and halve the boxes.  Hopefully a bit of peer pressure here will encourage them to think about responsibility next time.

How the GFI activities ran

The girls really have got the hang of this now (this is the second GFI they have run on their own). 

Here are some observations

1. All patrols worked well in their groups and (from what I could tell at least) girls were treating each other fairly and cooperating.   
2. Wanted to spend longer, and would probably have spent an hour on their first activity, (craft-based) despite all of the chosen activities being listed as 20-30 mins each in the GFIs
3. Lots of good co-operation, collaboration and communication going on in each patrol
4. Good to bring emergency just-in-case 'core' items for each task, so the rest of the patrol isn't prevented from completing their activity if a key person doesn't come.
5. 2 or 3 girls didn't realise they were doing TWO activities this week - they thought one activity per week. Need to make that clearer on their planning sheets.

Baden Powell Challenges - girls on a new journey.

We have one girl who is 3/4 through her Baden Powell challenge activities, and this week we started off four more girls on their journey. One had already looked through the clauses and chosen some she liked the look of, but all four new ones were given a folder to have a look through.  While one seemed perhaps a bit disinterested, the other three of them are already chattering about what clauses they might like to do: organise an international evening for the unit; first aid and fake wounds; cooperative games evenings, and suchlike - I think we may be able to have a term of BP-organised evenings at this rate!  We will see...